Frostpunk 1927 — macOS

Frostpunk runs on Macs with macOS 10.15 or later, including Intel models. It was tested on macOS Sonoma with a 2020 MacBook Air M1, so Apple Silicon users can expect it to work through translation. This is a full city survival game, not a stripped-down port.

Manage the last city on Earth

You set laws, work hours, medical care, and food rations. Every decision has a cost, and the population will remind you of it.

Send expeditions outside the walls

Scout the frozen wasteland for resources and new people. What you find can keep the city alive or put it at risk.

Develop technology to endure

Before you start building your generator, check that your Mac meets the requirements. The game needs macOS 10.15 or later, and it is built for 64-bit Intel processors. The official minimum hardware calls for a 2.6GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB of RAM, and a 4 GB AMD Radeon Pro 5300M or Radeon Pro 560X or better. You will also need about 10 GB of free storage. If you are on an Apple Silicon Mac like the M1, the game runs through the Rosetta translation layer, which worked fine during testing on a 2020 MacBook Air. Just make sure Rosetta is installed before you launch the game.

Set display to full screen on Intel Macs first

A few adjustments right after installation can save you trouble later. Head into the graphics settings and set the display mode to full screen if you want the best performance on an Intel Mac. The game defaults to a resolution that might not match your display, so check that it matches your screen's native resolution. If the game feels sluggish, lower the shadow quality and the anti-aliasing setting first; those two have the biggest impact on performance. On the audio side, the voice language is set to English by default, and there is no other voice option, so that is one thing you will not need to change.

An Anno veteran’s first New Home run goes wrong by day ten

You have played through every Anno and Cities: Skylines map twice, so you think you can handle a frozen city. You start a New Home run on normal difficulty, and everything goes fine for the first ten days. Then the Londoners event triggers, and your people start talking about leaving. You realize that building more tents and cookhouses is not enough — you have to manage hope and discontent as carefully as coal and wood. You pass a law for extended shifts to boost production, and discontent rises fast. You sign a purpose law from the Order tree to keep control, and hope stabilizes. By day 30 you are sending scouts to a frozen dreadnought, researching steam automatons, and juggling coal mines that need more engineers than you have. That is the moment Frostpunk feels different from other city builders: the population has opinions, and they matter.

Fix a no-start game by installing Rosetta on Apple Silicon

The game does not start. This usually happens when Rosetta is missing on an Apple Silicon Mac. Open the Terminal app and type softwareupdate --install-rosetta to install it. On Intel Macs, make sure you are running macOS 10.15 or later and that your graphics drivers are up to date.

The game crashes after the intro logos. This is often a display issue. Go to ~/Library/Application Support/Frostpunk and delete the settings.ini file. The game will rebuild it with defaults. Then set the resolution to something lower before you adjust other graphics options.

Performance stutters in the late game. As your city grows, the game has to track more citizens, buildings, and paths. Lower the population detail setting if you can find it, or drop the shadow quality one more notch.

Expedition teams disappear. They did not actually vanish; they likely ran out of supplies and froze. Send a second scout to the same location to recover any resources. In the future, keep an eye on the scout's supply timer and bring them back before it runs out.

Research steam automatons and airships to automate labor and expand your reach. Technology is the difference between surviving another day and losing everything.

• macOS 10.15 or later
• Intel architecture
• 16 GB RAM
• 10 GB available storage
• 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7
• 4 GB AMD Radeon Pro 5300M, Radeon Pro 560X or better